


Zeitnot

by prosecutorpumpkin



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, KH3 spoilers, M/M, Nightmares, Xigbar and Ansem run away from the final battle oop, mild violent imagery but nothing in great detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 13:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosecutorpumpkin/pseuds/prosecutorpumpkin
Summary: [zeitnot (/ˈzaɪt.nət/)(chess) time trouble, time pressure, a situation where a player has little time to complete the required moves]Escaping from a defined role is hard. Escaping from its scarring impact is a little harder.





	Zeitnot

He’s been here before.

Not that the number of times ever makes the experience less ghoulish, especially when they’re always accompanied by  _ this _ . The sky stretching endlessly over yawning valleys and cliffs a nightmarish black, impenetrable as pitch. Keys erupting crookedly from the ground, makeshift headstones that shake under the fearsome occurrence as though their owners’ souls still possess them, screaming, horrified that this is happening again,  _ again _ . His good eye is still sharp, and the way the nearly neon moon overhead paints everything in garish pure whites and overly saturated blues and inky blacks seems almost too intense.

_ It’s so familiar _ .

His spine contorts unnaturally as he arches his back, throwing himself open as if to soak open that horrifying light. His eye is wide, the yellow, too, washed out by the intensity of what he beholds: that awful, damned, beautiful, godly Kingdom Hearts. Throwing his head back even further, he unleashes a guttural howl of a laugh, one that rips his throat raw. The noise bounces claws and scratches its way across the scarred earth, announcing the wild bliss of completion.

“ _ Master! _ ” Xigbar...Luxu finally speaks, words coated in drool and fanaticism. “C’mon...I did this for you! Arentcha gonna show up and give your kid a pat on the back?!”

Not that he’s looking for an answer; his ears are still ringing with his own noise. Noise, however, is easier to block out than the nauseous tide inside of him, part of him realizes, and his stomach lurches. Though that moon tries, it still can’t quite wash away the tears that burn the rim of his eye. He wants to ignore the sensation altogether, wishes deep to his gut that the wet trail streaking down his hollow cheek is a liquefied drop of that moon’s light. It’s becoming sickeningly clear that the passion of the moment isn’t drowning out the ugly wave of sorrow beginning to crest inside of him.

He knows what he did.

_ Focus _ .  _ Focus _ . On something to anchor him, to keep that awful joy as a shield against the rest of him.

His eye catches on a heart as it drifts upwards; a straggler, it seems. Still a bright, ruby red, just barely released from its rightful chest. Yes, that’s right. Satisfaction bubbles in his chest;  _ he _ had done this. It was too easy, effortless even, how he could wring out hearts from these puppets and offer them up like so many favors. Fools, dancing upon a stage he had set, props that could be swept off and reset to his liking. The thrill of a job well done. A role fulfilled.

What difference does it make who he crushes underfoot?

As he rights himself, his knuckles brush against the hilt of a keyblade...his keyblade. His mind foggily gropes at the present, emotion split in two. His keyblade is still thrust inside of another body, ready to unleash another offering. He slides its ancient, torturous blade out, its removal inhumanly neat. Another bright red heart flits upwards.

His body moves before his brain can finish begging it to stop, to cling to the euphoria he’s in.

_ Don’t look. _

He looks down.

_ Please, don’t look. _

Silver hair is splayed against the ground, unseeing amber eyes dissolving into darkness. The cry is almost strangled in his throat, but too late.

His screams float up, another sacrifice to the moon above. 

His eye snaps open.

Xigbar feels himself quiver, and immediately lets out a harsh, broken laugh. His body is a traitor to give away his emotions so easily right now. The moon outside of their bedroom window shines far more tolerably than the one in his dream, soft and pale. It does a good job of illuminating the sculpted muscles of the man he’s cradling. That man’s handsome brown skin almost glowing, his silver hair falling in gentle waves across his back, the steady rise and fall of his shoulders letting Xigbar remember that yes, he’s alive.

Ansem is alive.

Xigbar pulls himself closer, pressing his lips against the base of Ansem’s neck in a not quite kiss. He’s almost afraid the man will shatter apart as Ansem sighs in his sleep, his body responding automatically to the touch. The replica body is as good as human, though Xigbar wonders if Ansem even really needs to sleep, even now. If he’s merely humoring the other, aware of the embarrassing gasp Xigbar uttered upon wake, if he knows how firmly the sharpshooter is gripping him now. If he’d playfully laugh, softly mocking the uncharacteristic fright, explain to him the mechanics of trauma and nightmares in a way that would be condescending to anyone else if Xigbar wasn’t aware that Ansem meant it as a way of telling him  _ “Yes, you’re smart enough to know this already, but I know it is hard to remember through your distress.” _

That sarcastic wit that can match his own...Xigbar’s breath begins to calm as he thinks of it, slowly warming his fingertips from their frozen clawed grip. This is the man he loves. Not even for the Master could he take away a mind so enchanting, a heart so similar to his. If he squeezes his eye shut, he could almost imagine the Luxu of old’s pen skipping across pages, writing the exact same things Xehanort did when he poetically detailed his experiments. When he lamented the way his life seemed out of his hands.

And Xigbar’s own machinations had helped bring him into that misery.

He presses his face closer, and breathes in the spiced scent of Ansem’s hair. His chest lightens as he recognizes that scent as the hair oil he’d gifted Ansem in that gap between Radiant Garden’s fall and Ansem’s first...and hopefully only...demise. A joking gift for a man who had once been bald. How he must’ve held onto it until now, when he could anoint his head with it, a body of his own. The Master had wanted that head to be lopped off, pawn sacrificed, and depended on Xigbar to be the one to make the final stroke of the sword. Lead the sheep to slaughter. Summon Kingdom Hearts. Bring back the Master.

He is cruel, he is devoted to his role, and such a task should’ve been easy for him.

But this is the man he loves.

He will make a paradox out of fate no matter what the Book had said. When he had gripped Ansem’s hand, stolen back Xehanort’s heart from the crushing fate, turned away from that “destined battlefield”, he had sworn it then. He would finally set the stage to his own liking, no longer for the shadow lingering over him for centuries. He’s grown too attached to the scapegoat he’s lain at the altar, and too aware of the hand guiding his own.

For now, and always, the Master’s plans will remain merely a nightmare.

He’ll make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a currently incomplete AU of mine in which these two ditch the final battle and subsequently cause a lot of dominoes to fall in their quest for purpose and freedom. I hope to expand upon it later, but for now, here's a glimpse into that world!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Spare me tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576909) by [lawyerdonut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawyerdonut/pseuds/lawyerdonut)




End file.
